


Harry Potter and the Trail to Hogwarts

by TeamTired



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hunting, Wilderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 09:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 21,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamTired/pseuds/TeamTired
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Harry misses the Hogwarts Express as a First Year, he decides he would rather take his chances following the train tracks on a hike to Hogwarts than risk missing out on learning magic forever. </p>
<p>Will The Boy-Who-Lived be able to survive the magical countryside with only his school supplies and wand to keep him safe?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-quarters

Harry woke at five o'clock the next morning and was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. He got up and pulled on his jeans because he didn't want to walk into the station in his wizard's robes -- he'd change on the train. He checked his Hogwarts list yet again to make sure he had everything he needed, saw that Hedwig was shut safely in her cage, and then paced the room, waiting for the Dursleys to get up. Two hours later, Harry's huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the Dursleys' car, Aunt Petunia had talked Dudley into sitting next to Harry, and they had set off.

They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Harry's trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for him. Harry thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.

"Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine -- platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"

He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.

"Have a good term," said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Harry turned and saw the Dursleys drive away. All three of them were laughing. Harry's mouth went rather dry. What on earth was he going to do? He was starting to attract a lot of funny looks, because of Hedwig. He'd have to ask someone.

Harry took a few steps back and took a moment to think. As he looked around the bustling station, he tried to single out another wizard, or someone else who was having the same trouble. As he listened to conversations, he thought he heard a few of the wizarding words he had heard in Diagon Alley, but nothing pointed to the true destination of Platform 9 and ¾.

Just then a large man pushed his way past Harry, toppling his cart. As Harry’s school supplies scattered across the ground and Hedwig’s cage rattled as it rolled alone the floor of the station, Harry panicked. He was worried he might be late for the train, or that someone non-magical would see all his wizarding books. He tried to pick them all up as quickly as he could, but a few errant feet ended up knocking some of his books across the terminal floor, and nobody seemed to pay him any mind. Once he finally collected all of his supplies again, he turned his attention back towards the wall between platforms 9 and 10, where he saw a boy his own age barrel through the wall, trolley and all, until he had disappeared altogether. 

Harry suppressed a gasp and looked around, but the patrons of the station didn’t seem to notice. He watched carefully to see if anyone else passed through the wall, but he saw nobody else. When he turned to check the clock on the station wall, his heart sunk. He had five minutes until the Hogwarts Express left, and no idea how to pass through the wall. 

Moving as inconspicuously as he could manage, Harry approached the wall between Platforms 9 and 10 and gave it a little knock. It felt hard and solid, same as any other brick. Was there a code or a secret knock, like in Diagon Alley? Perhaps he had to wave his Hogwarts letter at the wall? Why hadn’t anyone told him how to pass through the wall? 

His eyes darted to the clock again. He had only two minutes before the train left. Acting in desperation, he decided to do exactly what he had seen the boy before him do and run directly at the wall, as quickly as he could. Maybe that was all there was to it. 

Harry pushed his cart a few feet back and steeled himself. It was all or nothing at this point, he had no time to waste. Pushing forward, he ran at the wall as quickly as he could manage, Hedwig hooting nervously as he rushed towards the wall. Harry clenched his eyes tightly in anticipation of the crash, but it never happened. As he slammed into the wall, he felt the wall turn into a bit of jelly, and he continued to push on against the viscous force of the wall, which seemed to be getting more solid at every moment. 

Just as he was reaching the end of the wall, he felt the force of another person collide against his shoulder, knocking him back. Pushing onwards, he found himself on the other side of the wall, on Platform 9 and ¾. It seemed like any other platform in the station, except that it seemed to be walled in on all sides by a brilliant red brick wall, save for the side opposite where Harry had arrived, which stretched out into an impossibly open and green countryside. In the distance, Harry saw a brilliant red locomotive, steaming away. He turned hurriedly to the clock on the wall of the station, which read 11:02. He had missed the train, and somehow the station had emptied already. 

What was he to do now? Harry began to panic. If he could somehow get through the wall again, he could get back to King’s Cross, but he wasn’t sure that would be much better than his current situation. He wasn’t about to give up on learning magic just yet. Harry wasn’t quite sure just how far Hogwarts was from King’s Cross, and the idyllic English countryside that stretched out before him only further served to confuse him. Was there simply an area of London which was hidden from non-magical eyes, just like Diagon Alley, but which was never developed, leaving open countryside for the Hogwarts Express? 

Harry supposed so. 

Calming himself down, Harry took stock of his situation. He had missed the train to take him to a magical school which he knew very little about. On his person, he had the clothes on his back, as well as a year’s worth of magical books, a set of dragon hide gloves, three sets of robes, a cloak, some potion making supplies (which he had no idea how to use), his wand (which save for the incident at Ollivander’s was indistinguishable from any other well-crafted stick), a loyal owl in a cage, and a trolley. 

And before him was a long and winding track which apparently led to his destination: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Looking around, Harry found nothing else in the Platform of interest and jumped down onto the track itself, looking once again towards the empty land before him. 

In that moment, Harry Potter could have done many things. He could have sent Hedwig ahead to ask for help, or he could have passed back through the wall into King’s Cross and asked for help there. He could have attempted some sort of messaging spell, or waited for the train to return.

But he did none of those things. 

Hoisting his trolley down off of the Platform, the Boy Who Lived began the long journey to Hogwarts. 

Harry Potter walked.


	2. The Drinking Water

Harry walked for four hours before he realized how poorly equipped he really was. He had no knife, no tent, no survival knowledge, and worst of all, no food. Though his arms began to ache from hauling the luggage all that distance, and his legs began to burn from the sheer effort he was exerting, he knew he couldn’t stop. He had made up his mind. He would not return to the Dursleys, he could not return to the Dursleys. He had missed the train and that was that. As the sun began to retreat towards the western side of the sky, Harry felt a chilling breeze pick up and he couldn’t help but shiver a little as the wind pierced his poorly fitting T-shirt. Since he was not sure he could carry on much longer anyway, he elected to stop, if only for a little time. 

He found a large rock a few feet away from the track and walked over to it. He hoisted himself up and sat on top of it, resting his feet on his trunk below. His mind no longer focused purely on the long march to Hogwarts, he once again took stock of his situation. He was not, as he feared, completely hopeless. Though he did not have the things that most people would require to survive, what he did apparently have was magic. Perhaps, Harry thought, it was time to learn a little bit more about the magical world. 

He hopped down from his rock and began to rustle through his belongings. Thinking very carefully, he removed his wand, his potion ingredients, and his copies of “Magical Drafts and Potions” and “One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi”. Harry knew that if he didn’t eat something in a few hours, he certainly wouldn’t be able to continue at the pace he was going.

He decided first to take stock of what potions he was capable of preparing. As he leafed through the book, he was fairly disappointed that most of the potions required a fire, which he wasn’t sure he could supply just yet, or fresh ingredients, which he had no idea how to procure. Despite that, he was able to bookmark a simple solution that could apparently render water drinkable, and another that promised increased energy. 

Turning to “One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi”, Harry was even more disappointed. Most of the things described in this book were unlike anything he had ever seen before, and even fewer of the entries were edible. As Harry flipped past one entry of poisonous fungi and magically volatile herbs after another, he shuddered. Was this really the world he wanted to live in?

In the back of the book, in a second Appendix marked “One Hundred Common Non-Magical Plants, Herbs, and Fungi”, Harry found a few more promising species. He took care to read up on the distinguishing characteristics (and common imitators) of a few common and edible species of plants, hoping that he could perhaps find some to eat. 

Satisfied that there was now at least a chance he would survive without starving, Harry put down his texts and examined his wand. His wand had sparked when he gestured with it in Ollivander’s, but it hadn’t done anything since, though admittedly Harry had kept it hidden far away during his remaining time at the Dursleys’ home, far too afraid to try it out.  
Harry tried to remember the gesture he had made last time, and after a number of attempts and some careful concentration, he was able to produce sparks again, though much dimmer and less impressive than last time. Harry considered the books of magical theory and spells that still rested in his trunk. Was there a chance he could teach himself a small amount of magic, even just enough to get by? 

He decided not to play with forces he wasn’t quite ready to control, and instead scouted around the area for something to eat. After an hour of careful looking, he had amassed a large pile of dandelion stems (their seeds already blown away long ago), a small handful of overripe wild berries (which he recognized as safe to eat), and a single large mushroom, which he triple checked against the book before he confirmed as safe. 

Depositing his load of edible plants back at his trunk, he drew out his cauldron and walked a few hundred feet to a tiny pond. He scooped up as much water as his cauldron could hold and brought it back to his rock, where he once again consulted the Potions text. 

According to the text, all potions required careful mixture with a wand to work properly. Poor technique could result in an ineffective potion at best and a dangerous mixture at worst. Harry took a few moments to read the “potion-making primer” in the front, which described the proper way to mix and mental exercises to stir a potion. Drawing his wand, Harry attempted the same gestures as described in the book. For the first few minutes of gentle gesturing, Harry saw little more than ripples in his cauldron. Growing frustrated, he began making wilder gestures, and instead of the gentle currents and streams the text recommended visualizing, Harry began to imagine gushing waterfalls and crashing waves. 

Then, at the upswing of one of his most violent upward thrusts, the water in the cauldron burst upwards, propelled like a geyser up into the sky. Harry tried to get out of the area, but he still became soaked. Glad there was no one around, Harry quickly changed into a set of robes and left his jeans and T-shirt out to dry and went to go get more water. 

Though he didn’t experience another explosion, it took Harry another thirty minutes of careful concentration and precise movements to stir the water effectively. Finally satisfied his stir technique would not contaminate his potion, he carefully weighed out the dried newt eyes and Dittany stalk that the water-purifying recipe called for. 

After ten agonizingly careful clockwise turns, the water in the cauldron turned a satisfying clear, with the ingredients Harry added apparently dissolved into the mixture. Harry then retrieved the glass phials from his trunk and carefully stoppered as much water as he could. When he was satisfied he would have enough to drink at least for another day or two, he drank as much as he could from the cauldron, leaving only enough room in his stomach for a few handfuls of dandelion, half of the berries he had managed to collect, and a quarter of the mushroom he had scavenged. 

Having satiated his stomach and regained no small amount of energy, Harry packed up his trunk and resumed the hike, eager to use up as much of the remaining daylight as possible.


	3. The Chase

As the sun finally began to sink behind the distant tree line, Harry began to have no small amount of difficulty seeing. He had no trouble walking around holes, ledges, and hidden stones when it was still light outside, but now he feared he would trip and hurt himself. He found a small clearing a few dozen feet away, where even in the darkness he could still faintly see the tracks. He didn’t have much to keep himself covered and protected, so he changed back into his dried T-shirt and laid his robes on the ground, creating at least some barrier between himself and the slightly damp grass. Then, he grabbed the cloak out of his trunk and laid it on top of himself, using it as a makeshift blanket. 

Now assured that his sleeping arrangements were set up, Harry turned one final time to his wand. If there was some way to produce even a little bit of light, he could use some of the night time to read or even walk a little more. As he grasped his wand, he concentrated as hard as he could on creating some sort of light, but when nothing happened, he just tried the sparks again. This time, his wand only threw out a few pitiful pricks of light before sputtering out, confirming Harry’s fears that at least as things stood at the moment, the night was completely dead time. With nothing else to do but wait for the sun, Harry made a dinner out of the rest of the food he had collected that day and a phial of water. Then, after feeling a chill as the last bit of the sun disappeared, he curled up between his robes and the cloak, in a position that was not entirely uncomfortable. Though he was not accustomed to sleeping outdoors, it was only slightly worse than his accommodations under the stairs, and since there were no Dursleys to wake him up or torment him, Harry counted it a win for sleeping outdoors. 

As he lay looking up at the sky, watching the stars slowly twinkle into sight, Harry Potter thought about the world of magic that he had so abruptly entered. How was it possible for all of this undeveloped land to somehow exist in the heart of London? And for that matter, how did he simply pass through a wall earlier today? Would he ever make it all the way to Hogwarts, assuming the journey was even possible on foot? And assuming he did make it, would anyone there even have missed him?

Harry supposed not, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him. He had made up his mind to get to Hogwarts, one way or another, and that was exactly what he was going to do. 

Curling up even more tightly under his cloak, Harry resolved himself to getting to sleep as quickly as possible, so he could wake up at five o’ clock the next morning to walk again. As long as he was wasting his night, he might as well be making the most of his days. It took him a little while to calm down his racing mind so he could get some rest, but eventually he succeeded. Just before he drifted to sleep, he unlatched Hedwig’s cage, trusting her to return after her nightly hunt. 

As a cold wind blew through the slice of magical world that housed the Hogwarts Express track, the creatures that called that place home awoke to begin their prowls. It started with the owls, which hooted excitedly as they caught their breakfasts. But then came the stranger, more predatory noises: the howls of wolves, the chitters of massive insects, and the muffled thumps of massive hind limbs as they moved swiftly through the grass. Harry heard none of it as he continued to innocently rest, tossing and turning only slightly in his makeshift bed. 

It was not until a few hours had passed that one such creature of the night noticed the sweet, warm breath coming from Harry’s encampment and went to investigate. As it padded ever closer on its four limbs, its movements silenced by the grass, Harry remained blissfully unaware. It was not until the beast had opened its massive fanged jaws and begun to extend the tentacles on its back that its hungry panting awoke Harry. 

Utterly groggy and completely unprepared, Harry jumped, shouting wildly as he backpedaled away from the unfamiliar monstrosity. Luckily for him, he managed to grab his wand as he retreated. Though the monster was at first put off by its prey’s sudden mobility, it quickly began pursuit. When Harry realized his frantic backpedaling wouldn’t be enough, he turned away from his pursuer and took off in a full sprint as quickly as he legs would take him. He made it a few hundred feet before he turned his head back, only to see that he was still being chased, though a little less enthusiastically. Inspired by his at least partial success, Harry continued his run, but as he turned his head back to look ahead, he quickly realized he had made a huge mistake. Even with only starlight to see with, Harry could make out the faint outline of a sudden drop ahead. Though he tried to slow down, he couldn’t, and he tripped off of the ledge, falling a short distance and landing in a crumpled heap on the dirt below. 

For the next few minutes, Harry remained perfectly still. His right ankle felt like it was on fire, and he could barely move it. But perhaps most importantly, he could hear the beast that had been pursuing him sniffing around up above. Harry held his breath and didn’t dare move a muscle, and eventually the creature left in search of easier prey. 

Once Harry was sure that he was safe for the moment, he allowed himself to really feel the panic that he had suppressed during the chase. His heart was still beating so quickly he thought it would explode out of his chest, and though he was breathing very rapidly, every breath felt shallow, like he couldn’t get enough air. When he finally calmed down, he was still completely consumed by the terror of what had just happened to him. This place was nothing like Diagon Alley, Harry realized. Instead, Harry saw then that he had journeyed into a world that was incredibly deadly, and perhaps even worse, a world that he knew nothing about. Though he wanted to return to his camp, he wasn’t sure he could make the trip. Instead, Harry tried to make himself as comfortable as possible, and after a short time, he finally succumbed to a combination of pain and exhaustion and fell asleep.


	4. The Declaration

The next morning, Harry found he was completely soaked from a downpour the night before. Having left his cloak with the rest of his things, Harry was once again sopping wet, and now his teeth were chattering uncontrollably. When he stood up, he could feel the sharp pain in his ankle return. He realized with a grimace that not only was it going to be very difficult to continue much farther today, but even making back to his stuff might be out of the question. 

Knowing that making it back to his trunk might be the difference between surviving the next night and never making it to Hogwarts, Harry began the Herculean effort of hauling his nearly useless ankle back to his things. Though in the night it had felt like he had ran for an incalculable distance, he could still see the tracks in the distance, and using the sun and the fact that he recognized none of his surroundings, Harry was able to point himself southward, in the direction of his objective.

Though his frenzied dash the night before had only lasted a few minutes, the trek back took much longer. Practically dragging his injured ankle along, he slowly limped through the countryside, away from his ultimate destination of Hogwarts and towards the last known location of his trunk.

When he finally returned to his things, Harry was relieved that nothing had been lost or destroyed in the night. He satiated the thirst that his agonizing walk back had brought on with another two phials of water, and made a pitiful breakfast of his remaining dandelion stems. Harry felt weak, and he had a feeling it was more than just the fault of his lack of good sleep. He feared that if he didn’t locate more nutritious food soon, he might be in trouble. In the meantime, however, his ankle hurt too much to forage for food, which meant he had to find some other way to spend his time.

His encounter from the night before had taught him that if he wanted to survive, he needed something a little more impressive than basic potion-making technique, especially since he wasn’t sure that running was an option if something came for him again. The night before he had remembered to grab his wand, but he hadn’t done anything with it. It was time to make use of the wand as something more than a glorified spoon. 

Harry picked up his edition of “The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)”. He began reading on the first page, but when the first chapter promised nothing more than a primer on the importance of proper technique, he elected to flip to the index in the back for a more concise description of the spells, just to be sure he wasn’t wasting his time. 

After an hour of flipping through the book, Harry’s brain hurt, and he didn’t have much to show for it. Though there was no question that the information in the book was the key to genuine magic, very little of it was useful to Harry at the moment. Apparently, First Year students were only supposed to be able to perform minor charms and “Transfigure” one small thing into another, with only a few exceptions. Harry bookmarked a few of the most potentially useful spells: a spell for light, a spell for fire, a spell to knock things away, and a spell to freeze an enemy in place.

Harry elected to work on the fire spell first. He gathered up a handful of dry grass and set it on top of a nearby rocky outcropping. That way, Harry figured, if he ever did get the spell to work, he wouldn’t burn up anything but the grass. Next, he carefully read the instructions for the spell. He practiced the wand motions carefully a few times, aware of what could happen if he got a little too overzealous in his casting. When he was confident that he had the wand work down, he began reciting the incantation. 

The spell book had promised a blue-colored handheld flame that would provide heat without burning. In the introduction to spell work, Harry had read that a large part of magic was visualizing the spell effect properly, but Harry had a hard time imagining a flame that was hot but that could not burn the caster. After ten minutes of sitting in contemplation, he had gotten nowhere, so he elected to finally start practicing. 

The two hours were filled entirely with attempts to summon the “Bluebell Flames”, with no success. Harry thought he might have seen a flash of blue a handful of times, but he was still no closer to heating his potions, warding away dark creatures, or even staving off the occasionally chilling wind. 

Though Harry didn’t successfully perform any magic, he still felt mentally and physically drained. He elected to take a water break and began to scrounge for food. Because his ankle was still swollen and painful, it took him much longer to collect food than it had last time, and by the time he had finally gotten enough to eat that he could concentrate, the sun was already past the half-way point in the sky. 

Because he still didn’t feel mentally fit enough to practice magic, Harry instead turned to “The Dark Forces: A Guide for Self-Protection”. Though the book took care to censor the most graphic elements of its depictions, the text made obvious what Harry had learned last night: that the magical world was nothing to trifle with, and would kill an unprepared wizard in an instant. Harry became lost in the fantastic depictions of distant countries filled with vile creatures, and for many hours he sat reading his Defense Against the Dark Arts book, stopping only to cross reference a creature in “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” or take a sip of water. When the sun finally began setting in the sky, Harry spent his remaining daylight collecting food and sticks, just in case he managed the Bluebell charm. 

Then even more acutely aware of the terrors that awaited him during magical nightfall, Harry elected to attempt to stay up as much of the night as possible, to reduce the chance of being caught by surprise and to give him the chance to study his nocturnal adversaries as much as possible. When the last slivers of light finally disappeared beneath the tree line, Harry passed the time attempting the Bluebell charm and incanting another spell he had found: Lumos, which was a spell that promised small amount of light from the tip of his wand. 

As the stars began to twinkle into sight, Harry heard the sounds of the nighttime horrors awakening. A host of noises brought the promise of a bloody death for all manner of prey, and a flutter of wings confirmed that Hedwig, apparently indigent from being ignored all day, had taken flight to hunt for the night. Harry climbed onto the rock he had been using for charms practice and awaited whatever was coming his way. 

From what limited research Harry had done, he had narrowed down his predator from last night into one of a massive genus of predatory beasts that hunted throughout magical England, assisted by minor illusions and magical strength. The Defense Against the Dark Arts text promised that such creatures only preyed on what they thought was easy prey, and that demonstration of magical talent by a wizard would generally be enough to ward such a beast off. However, since Harry had yet to generate a spell of any kind, that piece of information didn’t make him feel much better.

To keep himself calm, Harry continued to alternate the Bluebell spell and Lumos, to no avail. With each failed cast, he became more and more frantic, especially as the growls of hungry beasts grew closer. His mental images of blue flames and illuminated wands became clouded with gruesome depictions of Harrys being ripped apart and devoured and strange and terrible beasts standing triumphant upon his corpse. When it became too much to take, Harry shouted: 

“I AM A WIZARD AND I WILL DO MAGIC!”

Sadly, his proclamation produced little more than a small echo and did very little for his self-confidence. Acutely aware that another outburst like that might draw unwanted attention, Harry began muttering a mantra to himself, as quietly as he could that he could still hear it.

“I’m a wizard, I’m a wizard, I’m a wizard…” he whispered to himself as he rocked back and forth on his perch. A stiff wind picked up but was warded away by his warm winter cloak. 

Accompanying the wind was the labored breathing of a hungry predator, which Harry heard at his back. He spun around, swinging his legs around to confront his adversary. About ten feet away, shrouded in a magical haze, was another of the creatures that had chased him last night, if not the same one. Harry’s mind was racing, but he realized that if he was going to survive, he would need to stay calm and confident. Summoning all of his courage and willpower, Harry forced everything out of his mind but a single image: the thought of a flickering blue flame, gently bobbing in the darkness. He carefully visualized the image taking real form in front of him, between himself and the monster, and concentrating as hard as he could, Harry whispered the Bluebell incantation, steadying his wand as well as he could as his arm twitched with fear. 

When nothing happened, the creature moved even closer, encouraged by the scent of fear and disappointment. Very much aware that he was on thin ice, Harry tried the spell one last time, attempting to keep his arm as limber as possible all the while. As he whispered the incantation quietly to himself, he visualized the flame as clearly as possible, along with all of the promise it brought with it. 

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the tiny flame erupted, floating and bobbling gently between Harry and the predator, keeping it at bay. Somewhat startled by this new development, the creature gave a disappointed snarl and turned away, leaving Harry in peace. 

When Harry was finally safe, he gave out a sigh of relief and the palm-sized flame disappeared, leaving Harry alone and very tired. Though he knew there was no end to the threats this land held, and the night was only beginning, Harry didn’t care. He had done real magic, and he was alive. For the time being, that was all that mattered. Just as he completed that thought, he felt himself pass out from sheer magical exhaustion, falling asleep right where he sat.


	5. The First Potions

When Harry awoke, he was pleasantly surprised that he had survived the night unscathed, despite having fallen asleep halfway through his vigil. Somehow, he had managed to avoid falling off of his rock perch, though he was a little sore from sleeping in that position all night. When he dropped down to the grass, he gingerly tested his ankle, which he found still tender but walkable. Encouraged by his ankle’s improvement, he set off for food.

After a few hours of carefully searching the countryside, Harry was able to recover a good amount of nettles, a number of safe wild mushrooms (including one which was purported to impart a small amount of magical energy), and some overripe berries. He started his breakfast by preparing another cauldron of purified water and finishing off his stored supplies. Then, he ate his fill of what he had collected, save for the magical mushroom, which he took care to dry as instructed in his text. Once his stomach was satisfied, Harry decided to look into helping his ankle.

Flipping through the potions book, Harry found a small number of healing draughts, though many of them required foreign ingredients or carried warnings with them. Apparently, many higher level healing potions were considered restricted material because of their potential side effects, leaving Harry very little instruction on how to mend his ankle. After careful consideration of the supplies at hand, Harry elected to brew a potion that promised to dull pain and reduce swelling, which he figured would at the very least help him become mobile. 

Unlike his water purifying potion, this concoction required a heat source to brew, so Harry set up a small fire pit using nearby stones and placed his cauldron in the center. He pulled his wand out and concentrated intently, attempting to replicate the successful Bluebell charm from last night. It took him a number of casting attempts to get the charm exactly right, but when he did, he soon had a satisfyingly warm blue flame underneath his cauldron and his brew began to bubble.

Two hours later, Harry’s ankle was feeling better, his stomach was content, and he was warm for the first time in days, all thanks to his conjured flame. Harry dispelled the flame using a countercharm from the Standard Book of Spells and cast a much smaller version into one of his glass phials. 

Figuring he had another few hours of daylight left, Harry elected to finally resume his trek to Hogwarts. The time passed uneventfully, with Hedwig coming and going occasionally and Harry stopping as often as he needed to rest his ankle and take a drink of water. He noticed with a small amount of dismay that the farther north he walked, the less hospitable the land became. Harry began to regret not gathering more food when he could, as he wasn’t sure that wild fruits and other edibles would be quite as easy to find as he journeyed onward. Taking that into consideration, Harry elected to stop following the Hogwarts Express track a little before sundown, spending his last hour of safe daylight foraging for dinner. 

When the sun had finally crept out of sight, Harry set up camp, this time suspending a pair of his robes above him like a tent, with one end tucked into his trunk and the other end weighed down by a few stones. Harry hoped that his makeshift shelter, combined with his winter cloak, would make his night more pleasant than the last two had been. 

Despite the tiring distance Harry had walked that day, he wasn’t quite ready for sleep yet. To pass the rest of the night, Harry practiced what little magic he could, repeating the incantations for the Bluebell Charm, Lumos, and Flippendo, a spell that could supposedly knock opponents back or even flip them over. 

Despite a considerable amount of effort, Harry was unable to reproduce any spells save for the Bluebell flames, which he grew more confident casting with each attempt. Since Harry was wary of wasting all of his magical ability to no avail, he created a few flames to ward his campsite and used the last one to read by. Though he couldn’t make out words easily, Harry could look at pictures with little effort, and resigned himself to studying the depictions in “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” and “One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi”, just in case he encountered any of either during the rest of his trip. 

As he felt himself grow noticeably more tired, Harry elected to turn in early, in the hopes he could get a head start on his walk the next day. He dismissed the Bluebell flame he was using as a light and fell asleep to the warm, comforting flicker of the rest of the charms that he had placed around his makeshift tent. 

Harry was awakened by the first slivers of sunlight as they poured through the thin robe he had suspended over his head. His legs felt a little sore from the last day’s walk and his stomach was grumbling angrily, but given his current preparedness and relative safety, Harry counted himself lucky. 

After a small breakfast of the rest of the food he had found the night before, Harry set off, determined to travel a substantial distance by the end of the day. He tried to keep as quick a pace as his legs could stand, but to keep things interesting, every half an hour or so he would stop and practice his magic. Every time he saw an interesting pile of stones, he would try to knock the top one over with Flippendo, and every time he saw a good bit of shade, he would try to illuminate it with Lumos. Once or twice that morning Harry swore he saw one of his rocks wiggle, and once he was sure he had seen a pinprick of light from his wand, but, on the balance, Harry came away from his practice with little more than the small emptiness he experienced every time he used up some of his magical energy. 

When the sun reached its peak in the sky, Harry could feel its rays beating down on him, prompting him to seek the shade for a more substantial break. Wary of losing too much magical energy to his regular practice, Harry unpacked his trunk and pulled out his cauldron, this time preparing a potion solution from the dried mushroom he had collected earlier. Very much aware of the consequences of poor Potions technique, Harry was exquisitely careful to follow the instructions in his text to the letter, and when he was done, he had a lime green bubbling solution exactly like the one described in the book. Because the text warned of the consequences of drinking too much of the solution in one day, Harry elected to ration his supply, using just enough to make sure he could practice his spells without endangering himself should an emergency arise. 

By the time his potion had finished, the sun had begun a retreat from its apex and the countryside had cooled off considerably, thanks in part to an oncoming cluster of very dark clouds. Harry thus resumed his walk, eager to cover more ground. As he walked, Harry began to recognize some of the magical plants he had read about the night before. Perhaps unluckily for him, most of them were notable for their poisonous or carnivorous properties, both of which were enough to keep Harry as far away from them as possible. Harry wasn’t sure if the gradual increase in the countryside’s magic was because he was getting farther away from London or if he was just more prepared to notice it, but either way he reminded himself to stay vigilant.

His vigilance paid off in the form of an early dinner, courtesy of a patch of leaping toadstools he was able to identify handily. Following the instructions in his text, Harry was able to capture and stomp the fungi into submission, yielding a tasty and otherwise non-magical meal.

After eating, Harry continued to walk until he reached what he estimated to be his eighth hour of walking that day. In the distance, he saw what he supposed was the end of the open countryside and the beginning of some sort of forest. Just one year earlier, Harry would have been wary of entering a forest for fear of encountering a snake or becoming lost, but even a cursory reading of his Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook had informed him that there were far deadlier things lurking in the magical forests of England, things Harry wasn’t sure he was ready to face just yet.  
Harry continued to walk until the forest was very clear in the distance, but not so close that Harry was afraid of anything sneaking out of it. It was there that Harry set up his camp the same way he had the night before, complete with a makeshift tent of sorts and “wards” in the form of Bluebell flames. 

To relax the rest of the night, Harry set up a pile of stones and attempted to Flippendo the top one off. After the fifth attempted cast, Harry managed enough wobble to topple the pile, and by the end of the night, Harry was able to knock the top stone off with enough force that it flew a few feet backwards. Satisfied but very tired, Harry turned in for the night, the confidence of finally mastering another spell overcoming his fears about the forest ahead of him.


	6. The Haunted Wood

Instead of sunlight, Harry awoke with a startle to the rude slap of the wet robe he had suspended above himself. Though it had apparently taken the brunt of rains last night, it had gotten just a little too wet and eventually slipped out from the trunk, leading it to fall right onto Harry. When Harry had finally freed himself from the collapsed “tent”, he surveyed the post-rains countryside. Thankfully, the rains had not lasted long, and all of his things remained mostly dry, protected by his fairly robust trunk. After having something to eat and taking a drink from his quickly shrinking water supplies, Harry used his Bluebell flames to carefully warm and dry his drenched robe. He remembered seeing a charm to repel water in the “Standard Book of Spells”, but he didn’t have time to look for it, he had bigger things to worry about. 

Though the rains had subsided, it was clear to Harry that his respite wouldn’t last forever. The forest ahead of him appeared thick enough to take the brunt of even a thunderstorm, but Harry knew he wasn’t quite ready yet for the potential death it held within. He had a small amount of defenses, but he felt he wasn’t as prepared as he needed to be.

The next step was producing a working Lumos, so that he could see in the darkness of the forest and perhaps more importantly begin traveling and reading at night. Taking a swig of the magical restoration potion he had prepared the day before, Harry steadied himself and carefully worked through the motions, flicking his wand and pronouncing Lumos as accurately as he could. All the while, he worked on imagining exactly the kind of light his text promised: a soft, silvery sort of light that illuminated a fair distance without being intrusive. After a half an hour of trying, Harry finally managed a flicking light that resembled what he was looking for, but it wasn’t quite there yet. 

Electing to take a break, Harry explored the area around the forest, checking for useful herbs and plants. The best he could find was enough food for the rest of the night and a cluster of elder berries growing right near the edge of the woods, all of which he carefully collected. When he returned from his trip, Harry consulted his Potions text, which revealed that the small berries, if freshly collected, could be made into a potion that would repel hostile spirits. Very much aware of how much he needed as much of an edge as he could get, Harry carefully considered his options. If he stopped to brew the potion, he would be forced to sleep on the edge of the forest for a second night in a row, and he could lose a large number of spell practice hours to tending to the potion. On the other hand, there was a chance, however small, that this potion could save his life, so Harry elected to brew it. 

As the sun began to set, Harry finally bottled a single large phial of the spirit-repelling solution, leaving a considerable amount left in the cauldron. Just in case, Harry dabbed the rest of the potion onto his trunk, robes, jeans and T-shirt, cloak and even gloves. He ate a small dinner and retreated to his finally-dry “tent”, where he practiced his spells. 

It was an hour later when he finally produced a textbook Lumos, complete with unwavering illumination. Though his wand produced no heat, only light, Harry couldn’t help but feel warmed by his accomplishment. This little wand light was a symbol of how far he had come, and what great potential he still had yet to fulfill. To top off an already fulfilling night, Harry was greeted with the sound of ruffling feathers as Hedwig returned momentarily to her cage. Harry was glad for her brief company, and he scratched her head for more than he had done the past few days. Entirely satisfied, Harry drifted off to a better sleep than he had had in days. 

The next morning, his courage steeled, Harry prepared to enter the forest. His trolley would slow him down, there was no question of that, so he had prepared himself to fight the best he could, just in case running in the forest wasn’t an option. 

So, when his things were all packed and Harry felt as ready as he ever would be, he carefully tested his spells one last time, very much aware of the dangers of overstressing his magic when he had such a potentially dangerous journey ahead. 

As he slowly approached the forest, Harry felt a mounting sense of dread that he wasn’t entire sure wasn’t just his own. As he moved deeper into the forest, his trolley having become more of a burden than a help, he maneuvered over fallen trees and hidden pitfalls, very much aware that death could come from any direction. Though the sun should have been shining brightly, the dense foliage obscured all but a handful of sunbeams after only ten minutes’ walk into the forest. Trolley handle in his left hand and Lumos-lit wand in his right, Harry pushed onward deeper into the magical wood. 

It was an hour’s walk later that he heard the first signs of trouble. When the first loud rustle sounded from very nearly directly behind him, Harry stopped everything. He slowly turned, wand drawn, to confront whatever it was that was stalking him. Seeing nothing, Harry remained frozen. Seconds felt like ages as Harry mentally prepared himself for anything. Suddenly, from underneath a stump sprang a brown blur, flying directly toward Harry’s face. Harry quickly dodged and took stock of his aggressor, who was some sort of tiny man, about a foot in height, with a massive potato head and short, sharp, bony limbs. Thinking quickly, Harry let go of his trolley and gestured towards the creature, directing a Flippendo in its direction. 

The spell hit head on, knocking the creature head over heels backwards and sending it spinning back into the woods. Harry received no respite however, because as soon as he had dispatched his first opponent, two more sprung up seemingly from nowhere, attempting to catch him off guard. Harry managed to blast the first away, but the second successfully latched onto his left arm and took a small bite of it, barely piercing the skin. Harry was able to shake it off and Flippendo it away as well, but not before even more reinforcements arrived. 

The battle dragged as Harry blasted away creature after creature, sustaining a handful of small scratches and bites on his legs and arms in the process. Thankfully, just as he was tired out, the onslaught stopped, leaving a rather exhausted Harry alone with his things. After taking a minute to collect himself, Harry took the last sip of his restoration potion and had a small meal before continuing on. 

As he moved into the darkest, more foreboding part of the woods, Harry could feel a chill creep up his spine. He had never been much for ghost stories, but his textbooks had confirmed that not only were evil spirits very much real, they could be quite dangerous in the wrong circumstances. As Harry carefully made his way through the wood, making sure to follow the train tracks whenever possible, he hoped that these were not the wrong circumstances. 

Unfortunately, his luck did not hold out, as his chill developed into a full shiver and a silvery figure drifted into his peripheral vision. Unlike the ghosts Harry had seen in movies, this particular creature was more wispy and featureless, save for a pair of vicious claws on each hand and a massive fanged maw where its face should have been. Harry was taken aback and allowed himself to panic, losing vital time in his apparent combat against the ghost. 

As Harry stumbled backwards, the ghost surged forward, reaching out and clawing wildly with its ghastly appendages. Harry realized with a gulp that the potion he had prepared the day previous was still locked in his trunk, which was effectively miles away the moment the ghost had placed itself between Harry and his things. As Harry continued his retreat, the ghost finally caught up to him and extended its limb to him, trying to touch him. As it’s nearly transparent nail finally came in contact with Harry’s clothes, it drew back quickly, making a sickening shriek and drifting away a little and off to the side. 

Using the time his smeared potion had bought, Harry rushed towards his trunk and opened it, dropping down to pick up his spirit banishing potion. Unluckily, the ghost had recovered and surged forwards again. Potion in hand, Harry dropped to the ground and scooted backwards in a frantic attempt to save himself, casting Flippendo towards the intangible figure all the while. 

The ghost continued onward, Harry’s spells passing right through it, until it finally caught up to Harry a second time. This time, instead of reaching out, it extended its claws, pushing past whatever protection Harry had managed and savagely rending Harry’s torso. As its suddenly very tangible claws burrowed a small way into Harry’s flesh, Harry felt a tremendous pain as his shirt was ripped to shreds and rivulets of blood began to drip their way down his front. 

Pushing past the pain, Harry uncorked the potion and splashed its contents towards the ghostly figure. As the liquid came in contact with it, the ghost shrieked a blood-curdling shriek, all the while backing away from Harry. As Harry splashed the rest of the potion towards the ghost, its screeching faded as it slowly faded out of existence. 

Still fueled by adrenaline, Harry dragged his trolley as quickly as he could through the forest, ignoring the pain as best he could. When he could finally see the light at the end of the dark and altogether terrifying forest, Harry allowed himself to collapse onto the moist loam of the woods, and with his last few moments of consciousness, he cleaned his wounds out with the last of his purified water and slipped on a fresh robe top before passing out entirely.


	7. The Recovery

When Harry came to, he was greeted with a harsh reminder of what had happened to him in the form of soreness and stinging wounds, accompanying a robe top that had grown stuck to him, cemented by dried blood. He had apparently lost most of his precious daylight, as the once piercing light at the other end of the forest was dim and tinged the heavy orange of sundown. Stumbling to his feet, Harry collected himself and dragged his trunk and trolley to the edge of the forest. 

When he finally exited the forest, Harry became much more painfully aware of his injuries. Content that he was safe at least for the moment, Harry slumped to the ground against his trunk and took a minute to assess the situation. He had lost a considerable amount of blood, at least enough that he wasn’t comfortable moving much farther without stopping. He had no water and very little food, and despite his relative safety at the moment, Harry knew that any number of foul beasts could come out of the forest at any moment. Harry made finding more water his chief priority. He knew his injuries would fester without regular cleaning, and he was completely parched anyway. After giving himself a few more minutes to rest, Harry finally dragged himself to his feet, and bringing only his potion phials wrapped up in the cloth that used to be his T-shirt, Harry set off in search of water. 

Following the tracks, Harry eventually found a quiet stream where he was able to rest a while and fill his phials. When he finally felt healthy enough to stand up again, Harry limped his way back to his trunk, where he made up a cauldron of purified water. When he had drank enough to slake his thirst and adequately cleaned out his wounds, Harry used the remaining water to concoct another pain-relief potion. 

Though at this point he had lost the entire day, Harry was satisfied with his progress. With the time he had left, and with his wounds taken care of and his pain significantly reduced, Harry was finally ready to get on the trail again. When he reached the stream a second time, he gathered as much water as he could. 

As the sun set, Harry lit his wand with Lumos and trekked slightly farther on, at least until he was in such pain that he slowed to a crawl. Figuring this was as good a time as any to stop for the night, Harry set up a makeshift tent again and tucked himself in. Since he had a reliable source of light, he could spend a portion of his nights reading, an opportunity that excited him. Though bodily Harry felt completely destroyed, his mind still felt sharp and ready to learn. 

His first manner of business was consulting his textbooks on what exactly had attacked him in the forest. A few minutes of skimming revealed that the horde of creatures that attacked him were a species of forest gnomes that presumably attacked him for entering their territory. 

The ghost-like creature was another matter entirely. The Defense Against the Dark Arts book listed a handful of examples of vengeful or angry incorporeal undead, but none of them quite fit what had attacked Harry; all of the examples in the text seemed far too human. Convinced that what had assaulted him was more probably a forest spirit of some type, and thus unlikely to chase him after he had left the forest, Harry let his fears rest for the time being. 

Having learned enough for the time being about the creatures he had done battle with, Harry moved back to the Standard Book of Spells for more ideas on what to do when something more serious than a forest spirit or a gnome attacked him. Though he didn’t find any more defensive spells, when Harry looked a little deeper, he came upon a levitation spell with a wordy incantation: “Wingardium Leviosa”. Harry realized that levitating his trunk would make everything incredibly easier, even if it took a massive amount magical energy. Though he had difficulty understanding the pronunciation of the spell, the wand movement was simple enough: just a swish and a flick. Harry tried a handful of casts of the spell, all with different pronunciations, on a nearby leaf, but to no avail. 

Harry stopped testing the spell so he could conserve enough magical power to cast a few Bluebell charms, and his last act of the night was to surround his things in the little comforting blue flames, allowing their flickering to guide him to a much-needed rest. In the last few moments before he reached complete unconsciousness, a familiar flapping of wings above confirmed that Hedwig was probably still annoyed with him, but certainly hadn’t abandoned him yet. 

Though Harry’s body was still sore when he awoke the next morning, a careful examination revealed that he was indeed healing very nicely. Thankfully, the pain had gone down to a manageable amount and the open wounds had mostly scabbed over or dried, diminishing the chance of infection significantly. With much more energy than the day before, Harry felt well enough to finally continue his trek, eager to make up the lost time from his skirmish in the forest.

As Harry walked, following the tracks as always, he carefully recounted the spells he had managed to cast so far. The Bluebell charm was his most consistent spell, and over the past few days it had demonstrated its usefulness time and again. Lumos had been extremely useful since he could cast it with some proficiency, and Flippendo had certainly been enough to deal with the gnomes from the day before. He still couldn’t get Wingardium Leviosa to levitate as much as a leaf, however, and he hadn’t even tested the body-freezing curse: “Petrificus Totalus”, partially from a lack of available targets to practice on and partially because he wasn’t sure it would work on the sort of things he was looking to defend himself against anyway. 

A few hours in, Harry stopped to scrounge for food. As he sat atop his trunk, looking out over the expanse of land he had yet to cover, he couldn’t help but continue about his options, or lack thereof, if another monster decided to attack him. Flippendo wasn’t really meant to act as an offensive curse, and it really put more rotation force into something than anything else. As Harry sat considering the problem of self-defense, he thought about the rocks that he was practicing on the other day. Because the rocks were small, Flippendo, when aimed correctly, could launch them a considerable distance. Perhaps, Harry thought, he could weaponize that somehow? 

He decided to get on the road again before testing his theory. For the first time in days, he was able to travel for almost six hours without being slowed down, attacked, or forced to stop. When he finally stopped for the night, his legs ached, but the knowledge that he had made it so far towards his goal made it all worthwhile. 

Harry was confident he had enough magical power in him for a little practice, so he found a few large stones and practiced throwing them in the air and trying to hit them with a Flippendo spell. After a few handfuls with not a single hit, Harry instead lined the stones up on top of a nearby boulder and tried to knock them off, with a little bit more success. After a few good hits, Harry was confident he could knock the rocks at least a fair distance, and after he found one of the rocks imbedded halfway into a nearby tree, Harry’s spirit soared, if not from his accuracy then at least for the confirmation that his idea had potential. 

Sufficiently satisfied that his magic for the day was mostly drained, Harry spent the rest of the night reading by wand light. He had grown tired of the nightmare-inducing contents of his Defense Against the Dark Arts and Magical Creatures texts, and instead elected to flip through the “Transfiguration” book, just in case there was thing in there he was missing. 

Sadly, most of the information in the first few chapters was theoretical, and even worse the chapters were more filled with lists of things that Transfiguration couldn’t accomplish than things it could. Setting the book aside, Harry tried to think of some way to use what limited Transfiguration he had, but when his head started to hurt, he turned his mind to other things.

He spent the rest of the night paging through the Potions textbook. He hadn’t done a through read since before he had access to fire, and he was sure that he had missed something the first time. Sadly, most of the more useful potions still required pieces of creatures that Harry knew he couldn’t possibly capture or kill, or plants that grew in far off lands. Regardless, Harry made a mental note to look out for a handful of plants that apparently were “uncommonly found” in the English countryside, just in case he got lucky. 

Just as he was setting up his tent for the night, Harry heard a rustling near Hedwig’s cage, and as he approached, he saw his snowy white owl jump on top of the cage and hop over to him, rubbing herself on Harry’s hand. Grateful for the company, Harry scratched Hedwig’s head absent mindedly until she was apparently satisfied, at which point she flew back into the night and Harry retreated to bed.


	8. The Sudden Trap

The next two days came and went with no incident. Harry would walk for hours, stopping only to collect water from a nearby stream or pond and purify it, forage for food, or practice his spell work. More from boredom than necessity, Harry collected a few handfuls of various herbs as he came across them, even if he didn’t plan on making any of the potions that required them any time soon. It didn’t hurt, of course, that making a potion on a whim saved his life one time already.

As Harry pushed on through the enchanted countryside, he could feel the ground become spongier and softer, which only made lugging his trunk and trolley even more tedious. He found himself practically walking on top of the tracks, just to prevent him and his things from being sucked down into the moist ground. 

On the night of the second day, having walked almost twenty hours in the past two days, Harry was dead tired, but was filled with the small thrill of having made so much progress in so little time.

When he set up camp that night, he found that he had sleep on top of his cloak rather than under it, just to keep his back from becoming soaked. Thankfully, the plant life that lined the ground was extremely soft, and Harry found himself getting a much better sleep than he had in nights.

In the morning, when Harry attempted to lift his hand from under the robe he was using as a blanket, he felt a strange resistance pulling at him. When he tried to turn his head, he felt the same resistance. When he finally turned his head enough to look down to his wrist, he saw a thin green vine that had wrapped itself around him. He realized with a start that the same had happened to his neck, and a quick test of his other limbs revealed that he had been similarly tied down there as well. 

At first, Harry was consumed with panic, especially when tugging at the vines around his wrist didn’t seem to get him anywhere. When the bonds around his appendages and neck didn’t grow any tighter, however, Harry relaxed a little and began to work out a solution to his predicament. In a perfect world, Harry would pull out his copy of “One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi”, find a requisite spell to deal with his adversary, and solve the problem with time to spare. But for the time, his options were limited. 

Straining his neck, Harry could see his wand next to him, just out of reach. The vines had not been attracted to his wand, which made things easier. By twisting the vines around his right hand and tugging very gently, he was able to slowly inch his hand to his wand. Though the vines never let go, Harry could at least feel them loosen up a little bit. 

His hand finally wrapped firmly around his wand, Harry got to work casting the Bluebell charm. At first, he couldn’t quite get enough mobility in his hand to make the requisite motions, but as he kept trying, he felt the vines loosen even more After what felt like ages of repetitive motion and a rapidly developing crick in his wrist, Harry finally managed to produce a small flame at the tip of his wand. 

The next step was applying the flame to the vines around his wrist. He slowly slid his hand up his wand until his hand was wrapped around it right near the tip, at which point he deftly spun it around until the still-aflame wand tip was resting on the vines. Though the plant life didn’t ignite immediately, Harry smelled an unpleasant burning odor, and after a few minutes he successfully burned through the entanglement on his right arm, freeing it. 

From that point on, everything became a little bit easier. He repeated the procedure on the vines around his neck, comforted by the thought that at least the charm wouldn’t burn him, followed by the vines around his left wrist and finally his ankles. Though the air was filled with the stench of burnt plant and his skin felt tender at the points at which he had previously been restrained, Harry was no worse for the wear. 

Harry knew he wouldn’t be comfortable resting again until he was sure he would be safe, or at the very least he had a better way to deal with the vines. As soon as he had retreated to a rocky clearing a little distance from the tracks, he felt safe enough to crack open his Herbology text to research the plant that had latched onto him in the night. 

His reading confirmed what he had already experienced: that the plant that had sought him out was generally harmless, though giving any more than a few hours to grow unabated was asking for trouble, often in the form of being restrained indefinitely. The book continued to describe how to locate the flowering stalk that served as the “brain” for a bed of “Angel’s Embrace” vines, as they were called. The conclusion was a suggestion for the usage of a cutting spell called “Diffindo”, which apparently was only appropriate for Second Year students and above. As such, a cross reference to “Standard Book of Spells” yielded exactly what he expected: nothing. 

Unlike the Levitation charm, Harry’s problem with Diffindo lied not with the pronunciation but with the wand motion. This was not the time, however, for negativity, and Harry reassured himself that he would get both spells down eventually. 

That night, well aware that sleeping anywhere flush with plant life could spell death before he even realized what was happening, Harry elected to sleep a little off the beaten path. When he finally found an island of small boulder, he set up camp, and eventually fell asleep, despite no small amount of discomfort.


	9. The Red-Hot Suprise

The next day, Harry was extremely careful about where he stepped, as he was not eager to repeat the unpleasant experience of the “Angel’s Embrace”, even if only for a moment. Unfortunately, as he continued to move onwards, even walking closely to the track, his ankle would occasionally become snagged on an errant curious tendril. 

Even more unfortunate was the sudden difficulty in finding any sort of food. Most of the nearby plant life was either grass or Harry’s new least favorite vine, and since Harry’s Herbology book kindly informed him that eating even the smallest piece of Angel’s Embrace could cause it to twist an unwitting wizard’s insides, Harry decided to go the extra distance for food. Of course, this meant he wasted more than half of the day going out of his way looking for nearby roots, berries, and edible mushrooms. 

On top of all of this, the unseasonable warm and humid weather had attracted no small number of insects, which wasted no time biting and harassing Harry at every opportunity. Thankfully, as Harry powered onward, the patches of Angel’s Embrace became smaller and less dense, and as the sun was setting in the sky, Harry finally crossed into a less swampy plain, putting that awful plant behind him. 

That night, after confirming that his sleeping place was at least relatively safe, Harry concluded the night by working on the levitation and cutting charms. After doing yet another double check on the pronunciation of “Wingardium Leviosa”, Harry was finally able to manifest a charm large enough to float a single piece of dead grass. Emboldened by his success, Harry used the charm on a small stone, and he found he was able to raise it a few inches into the air before he lost concentration.

For his last action of the night, Harry attempted a few severing charms, to no avail. At the very least, Harry figured, he now was relatively sure that the wand motions for Diffindo were more complex than a slash, a jab, or a flick with his wand. 

When Harry was packing away his things that night, he came upon a phial of Bluebell flames that he hadn’t bothered to extinguish. When he picked it up, Harry found it hot to the touch, and the longer he held onto it, the hotter it got, until Harry was afraid he would burn his hand and dropped the phial onto the ground. Concerned that the phial might get so hot it would ignite the grass, Harry slipped on his dragonhide gloves and moved the phial to a nearby stone pile where he could be sure it wouldn’t start a wildfire in the night. 

As he was setting down the phial, he noticed a few small spheres the size of marbles rolling around the phial, something he was sure wasn’t there when he had cast the charm a few days ago. Though he wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery, Harry wasn’t sure he was going to be worth anything without some sleep, so he put himself to bed.

When he awoke, Harry examined the phial to confirm that the strange sphere were still there. A tentative jab with his finger revealed that the phial was still red hot to the touch, which was cause for concern. An hour of research in “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” and “Magical Drafts and Potions” revealed that leaving the Bluebell flame unattended for so long had attracted something called an “ashwinder”, which had laid its eggs in the apparently insufficiently sealed phial. 

The Potions book said that ashwinder eggs were very valuable, and were chiefly used in love potions, but since Harry couldn’t imagine any use for such a brew at the moment, he did a little bit more digging. After a few more pages of reading, Harry found that if he carefully froze the eggs and introduced them to the right mixture, he could create a potion that would ignite an opponent with a fire that would burn hotter than most spells he could cast. While the prospect of creating such a weapon was intimidating, Harry knew he needed every edge to survive the trip to Hogwarts.

Luckily, the requisite freezing charm was apparently appropriate for first years, and Harry found it in the “Standard Book of Spells”. After a few casting attempts, he managed to chill the ashwinder eggs until they were safe to handle without gloves, at which point he consulted the Potions book to see what else he needed. Though most of what the potion required was standard, he still needed a “Flare Blossom”, which was an apparently volatile flower that grew throughout Northern England after periods of drought. 

As Harry continued his march that day, he found himself occasionally needing to recast the freezing charm. When continuing to keep the eggs in his pocket made him too nervous, Harry tied a strip of his ruined t-shirt around the neck of the phial and tied the other end around a belt loop of his jeans. The end result was that he could keep an eye on the eggs without worrying about burning the pocket of his jeans off. 

Though Harry felt the repeated freezing charms drain his magical power, he still had enough energy to practice a few of his other spells. During the stops on his walk, he attempted a few more rock launches with Flippendo and managed to levitate a stone as large as his fist, but he still couldn’t quite manage the wand work for Diffindo, at least not yet. Once he thought he could see a small tear in a piece of grass he had cast Diffindo on, but he couldn’t be sure. 

That night, Harry cheerfully greeted a visiting Hedwig, relishing the somewhat friendly bird’s company. Just before he fell asleep, Harry made sure to cast the most powerful freezing charm he could muster on the ashwinder eggs and untied them from his pants, leaving them on a nearby boulder.


	10. The First Cut

As Harry trekked farther north, he continued to find the occasional pond or stream to take water from. However, at the end of another hard day’s walk, he realized as he checked his Potions kit that he was running low on eye of newt, and even a quick estimation revealed he had no way to make enough water for the rest of the trip, even assuming he was already half-way to Hogwarts. Electing to save his eye of newt for purifying water for potions, Harry decided to start boiling his water for drinking. 

The first taste of his boiled water was foul and completely devoid of the refreshing semi-sweetness of the purified water he had been drinking. However, Harry first priority was conserving his resources and surviving, which meant sacrifices needed to be made. 

After another hard day of walking, Harry retired to his tent, same as always. That night, after more unsuccessful Diffindo casts than he could count, Harry cracked open his untouched magical theory book, hoping that Adalbert Waffling, whoever that was, could offer some explanation as to why he still couldn’t figure out the wand motions for the spell. 

Though the book on magical theory was even drier than the Transfiguration book, Harry found a small section describing the purpose of wand motions, complete with examples. In a table in the back of the chapter, Harry found a mention of the very spell that was giving him trouble. Diffindo was given as an example of an “irregular motion” spell, one that “possessed a necessary wand movement not associated with the flow of magical energy or the direction of the spell, but rather with the association the caster must have with the finished product”. Though Harry didn’t much understand that, when the book went on to indicate that Diffindo’s wand motion was jagged, like the edges of something cut with the spell, Harry understood. 

After a few casts of Diffindo, each with a different jagged wand motion, Harry finally confirmed he had stumbled upon the right casting pattern when his wand shot out a bolt of light that severed the blade of grass and the rock it was sitting on clean in two. Completely shocked, Harry steadied himself for a moment before trying the spell again, except this time with the intention of cleaving only the grass and not the rock. 

Half an hour later, Harry’s magical energy was completely exhausted, but he had managed to refine his Diffindo to the point that he could control how deeply he cut into a stack of grass blades, to within two or three blades in a fifty blade stack. Pleasantly surprised by his progress, Harry retreated to his trunk, arranged his robe as a “tent”, as usual, and felt into an extremely inviting sleep. 

The next day, Harry spent his mid-walk breaks practicing Diffindo. Over the course of the day, he eventually used the spell to whittle a particularly thick stick into a sharp point. The way Harry figured, it wouldn’t hurt to have another weapon, especially not one that was fit for fighting at close range and didn’t depend on magic. After a little bit of testing, he found a place he could tuck the sharpened stick into his pants without poking himself that still provided easy access.   
As the day stretched on, Harry developed a steady pattern of remembering to re-freeze his ashwinder eggs, practicing his spells, and eating small snacks of whatever he could find.   
When he laid down to rest that night, Harry flipped open his Transfiguration textbook for another attempt at understanding it. The most basic Transfigurations were those that changed one property of an object at a time, like color or shape, or those that changed exceedingly similar objects, like a piece of straw into a needle. Harry grabbed a strip of his shredded t-shirt and tried to imagine it if it was a different color, all while following the instructions in the textbook, but even after an hour of intense concentration and wand waving, he hadn’t managed to change its color in the slightest. 

Harry continued his comfortable routine of foraging, walking, and spell casting practice as he continued to walk the long and winding trail besides the Hogwarts Express tracks.   
In the distance, Harry saw a forest, though one completely different from the last one we walked through. The trees in the oncoming woodland were all nearly leafless, and were the dark, sickly brown of diseased trees. As he approached, Harry felt a chill go up his spine, as if some darkness was seeping out of the dead forest and reaching out to touch him. 

Harry was not eager to repeat his last forest encounter, but a quick check to the east and west revealed he didn’t have much of a choice. Though the trees that made up the obstacle ahead were so defoliated that Harry knew he would be able to see the sky his whole trip through, there was something foreboding about the forest, as if the very thing that had rendered the trees lifeless had taken up residence among them and was looking for its next victim. 

Since Harry saw nothing of interest on this side of the forest and was sure he didn’t want to be inside after nightfall, he set off as quickly as he could. 

As he entered the forest, Harry’s dread reached a climax. Every rustling leaf and errant breeze set him on edge. At his side, Harry held his wand, with his sharpened stick tucked within easy reach. Under every log and beneath every pile of leaves and stones, Harry thought he could see the piercing eyes of some nasty predator, ready to rob him of his life. 

Suddenly, a distant rustling culminated in a flash of brown that darted across his peripheral vision. Harry spun towards the flash and let loose a powerful Flippendo, violently knocking the small brown figure a few feet back until it slammed into a nearby tree. When the creature didn’t get up, Harry tentatively walked over, only to find that the beast that he feared was attacking him was only a rabbit. 

After investigating further, Harry confirmed that there was no way he would have been attacked, the rabbit possessed no poison tail, nasty fangs, or vicious claws. It was a simple, utterly harmless rabbit. Harry was struck with a small amount of remorse, sorry that his nerves and reflexes had so unfairly ended the life of a creature that meant him no harm. 

It took only a minute, however, for Harry’s practicality to eclipse his remorse. Though he had no experience in skinning or cooking wild game, Harry knew he couldn’t afford to let such a resource go to waste. The plant life at the entrance to this dead forest was all dry and inedible, and there was no way of telling if he would have a chance at food on the other side. For all Harry knew, this unfortunate rabbit was the difference between survival and starvation. He gingerly picked up the corpse of his prey and laid it on top of his trunk, committing to skin the rabbit once he had safely exited the forest and had no fear his activity would draw much nastier creatures. 

The rest of his walk through the woods was altogether uneventful. No other creatures presented themselves, and Harry’s sense of dread refused to falter until he was completely out of the woods and treading on relatively healthy grass. 

As the sun began to lazily sink downwards and the sky turned a burnt orange, Harry set up camp and laid the rabbit body out. Harry wasn’t sure how to go about removing the valuable pelt or extracting the precious meat, but after standing and staring at the rabbit for an uncomfortable amount of time, Harry elected to just get it over with. Raising his wand, he concentrated on the most fine and precise cut he could before casting a Diffindo down the rabbit’s belly. Slipping on his dragon hide gloves, Harry then began to peel the fur from the rabbit, using his Diffindo casts like a scalpel, careful not to damage the meat or mar the fur. 

Just as the last glimmer of sunlight disappeared from the sky, Harry finished his work, leaving himself a pile of meat, a small pelt of fur, and an unpleasant pile of organs. As Harry began to set up camp for the night and began boiling a cauldron of water to cook the meat, Harry heard Hedwig coming in from the south, apparently attracted by the smell of fresh meat. When Harry offered her some of the rabbit organs he had no interest in eating, she gobbled them greedily, apparently delighted by the treat. 

When Hedwig had had her fill, Harry dropped the rabbit meat into the boiling water, together with a few handfuls of roots and herbs he had gathered from the area. He wasn’t sure how long to cook the rabbit and he wasn’t that hungry at the moment, so Harry left the stew to cook overnight, leaving it covered to prevent the attraction of anything nastier than Hedwig. 

Harry finished his night by freezing his ashwinder eggs and testing his levitation charm. He was able to float a leaf and a few nearby rocks easily, but he couldn’t quite manage his trunk or trolley yet, much to his frustration. He scratched Hedwig’s head one last time before she flew into the night, and then lay down underneath his winter cloak to sleep.


	11. The Nasty Flock

When Harry awoke the next morning, a careful check on his cauldron revealed a cheerfully bubbling stew. Though the meat was tough from overcooking and the stew was fairly bland and tasteless, the meal was more filling and warm than anything Harry had eaten in years.  
Harry bottled the remainder of the stew and carefully extinguished the flame, knowing full well what could happen if he didn’t remember to put out his magical fires. As he packed up, Harry refreshed the freezing charm on the ashwinder eggs and then tied them to his belt, along with two phials of water and the remaining bottles of his stew. When he spaced them out enough, Harry was able to walk comfortably, with only a few of the bottle clinking together between his strides.  
As he continued to follow the serpentine track north, Harry noticed the grass becoming drier, with a significant crunch underneath every footstep. He knew that it hadn’t rained in days, and apparently that was taking a toll on the local plant life. As he didn’t see much to eat in the general area, he was glad to have his stew to fall back on, which he would occasionally warm up with a Bluebell charm.

As Harry marched onwards, he encountered only dried, thinning scrub for miles, but in the distance he saw a few pricks of red that dotted the landscape. As he approached the spots, they developed into single flowers, spread out from one another, each standing in the center of a perfect circle of scorched grass. Harry approached the closest one and confirmed his suspicions: that he had found a field of Flare Blossoms, ripe for the picking. Harry didn’t dare walk within the scorch radius, and instead sat down a respectful distance away from the circle and consulted ‘One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi”, which informed him that harvesting the Flare Blossom was a third-level endeavor, requiring technique and care at every step of the way. 

Harry weighed the risks and benefits in his mind. There was a chance he could be seriously hurt, or even kill himself trying to grab a stupid flower, but there was also a chance that very flower could mean the difference between life and death. Harry figured that as long as he was careful, it couldn’t hurt to just try.

Standing just within wand range, Harry began by casting Diffindo to elegantly sever the flower, as cleanly as possible. The first Flare Blossom he cast Diffindo at fell to the center of the scorched circle and exploded violently, vaporizing itself. Harry walked a little farther to the next flower and did the same, with the same result. At that point, Harry figured he would need to try something else. As he sat considering his options, he watched an errant bird coast onto the plain and land near a flower in the distance. When the bird extended its beak to peck at the flower, the flower burst into an inferno, completely disintegrating both itself and the bird. 

Put off by the bird’s violent death, but not discouraged, Harry tried his harvest one last time, this time starting with a Diffindo and quickly executing a Wingardium Leviosa, grasping the flower via levitation before it hit the ground. Encouraged when the flower did not immediately burst into flames, Harry slowly levitated the flower to his cauldron, keeping his distance all the while.  
When the flower was secure, Harry began the intricate process of mixing the potion that required it. For the next three hours, as he slowly added his dried ingredients, stirred as precisely as he could, and finally added his frozen ashwinder eggs, Harry was on edge, aware that a single errant mix could spell his doom. 

After the final refinement and distillation, Harry was left with a single phial of potion, which he carefully tied to his belt loop in place of the ashwinder eggs. With his potion finished, Harry looked up to find the night encroaching quickly, and he decided to make camp right there.  
As Harry slept, he dreamt of a flock of viscous bladed birds, screeching as they circled him. In his dream, Harry tried to run, but he was stranded on the very field he slept on. Everywhere he ran, a Flare Blossom popped up to block his path or a bird dove in front of him, obstructing his path. Harry found himself with nowhere to hide, and no matter the direction he ran in, he was cut off. Harry felt himself being corralled into a tighter and tighter circle, until he was completely trapped. It was at this point that the largest bird of all, a creature with knives for wings and Aunt Petunia’s face with a beak for a head, descended upon him, swiping at Harry with its talons. Harry swore that he could feel the creature’s claws dig themselves into his forehead, and when he awoke with a start, Harry could still feel his scar burn, and hear the screeching of birds above. 

When Harry peered out from his tent, he saw a small flock of birds, much less terrible than he had dreamt but still intimidating, circling him. At the sight of flesh beneath the tent, the birds began to swoop down, closing upon Harry. At first, Harry panicked, but when he realized there was nowhere to run, Harry drew his wand in one hand and his stick in the other and prepared for battle.

As the first bird approached, Harry could see its blood red eyes and the shine of its razor sharp talons. He cast a Flippendo towards the creature, but when it barely altered its trajectory after being hit by the spell, Harry cast a Diffindo, aiming to wound it or at least clip a wing. Harry’s spell was greeted by a wild screech and a spray of crimson. Incensed by their fallen comrade, another two birds dove towards Harry, obviously out for blood. Knowing that a Flippendo would do too little to stop them, Harry cast another two successive Diffindo spells, one right after another. The first spell nicked the first bird’s wing, discouraged it as it drifted erratically away. The second spell hit the second bird straight on, releasing a torrent of blood as the creature dropped from the sky.

The flock of birds, now fewer by three, rethought their choice of prey and one by one drifted lazily away, leaving Harry with a barren and bloody landscape and the fresh corpses of two of his assailants. 

Confident that he could now sleep safely, Harry just barely made it to his tent before collapsing, ready to catch a few more hours of restless sleep before the next morning.


	12. The Storm

Harry was lucky that when he awoke an hour later, the fruits of his conflict the night before were still fresh enough to eat. He gave them the same treatment he gave the rabbit, carefully slicing with Diffindo until he had a sizable amount of meat. Harry elected to begin cooking the meat as soon as he could, to prevent the heat from spoiling it. Unfortunately, it was another hour’s walk before he came upon water. After boiling a cauldron of water for drinking, Harry boiled up another batch of water from the nearby pond and tossed in the meat he had cut from the birds, along with the scare few edible herbs he could find and a few wild vegetables. As the stew simmered, Harry looked up the birds in Fantastic Beasts and where to find them, just to make sure he wasn’t eating something poisonous. The book assured him that while not the best meat around, Bladed Falcon meat was edible, though the book offered no cooking suggestions. 

Harry lost most of his morning cooking, but he made up for it in having a reliable food source for the next day or so. As Harry continued his march, the sun beat down on him, stifling him in his black robe top. He found himself needing to take more breaks than usual, and he stopped in every large patch of shade he could just to cool off. As the humidity began to climb, Harry looked up to see an angry dark cloud, moving in from the west. 

On one hand, Harry was glad to see that there would soon be an end to his water worries and the oppressive heat. On the other hand, as the clouds gathered into a massive thunderhead, Harry began to worry that when the rains finally did come, he would be washed away.  
When the sun was finally hidden behind storm clouds and a small drizzle started, Harry ended his daily walk prematurely, giving himself enough time to find somewhere safe and relatively dry to set up camp. As the first sound of thunder echoed in the distance, Harry realized his mistake. Though the oak looked inviting as the rains started, he could wake up electrocuted or underneath a fallen tree if he made camp here. 

Braving the rains as they picked up, Harry ran out from his cover, lugging his trunk and trolley with him. He was fortunate that he didn’t have to travel far before he found a depression in the earth that opened into a fairly tunnel. Once he confirmed that it was large enough to pull himself and his trunk into, Harry didn’t waste any time moving in, as he wasn’t eager to get soaked or get hit by lightning. 

Inside the tunnel, Harry found himself warm and relatively comfortable, though he was a little concerned about running into whatever made the structure, which seemed far too large to have been made by anything safe for Harry to run into. After checking the various dens of the tunnel and confirming he was indeed alone, Harry lit the area with a Lumos and began to read.  
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them gave a couple examples of large burrowing creatures that could be found in the area. After investigating the tunnel a little more, Harry found what his potions text identified as giant badger fur tufts and teeth, which quickly narrowed down exactly which creature’s home he was borrowing. Fortunately, Fantastic Beasts informed Harry of the giant badger’s nocturnal nature, and since it was not yet nightfall, Harry figured that he was at least safe to stay the night. 

Since he didn’t have enough room to practice levitation, Harry decided to try transfiguration again, and after a few failed incantations and a number of breathing exercises, he finally managed to change one of the pieces of dry grass in the giant badger den to a needle. Using a loose thread that had come off of an unraveling section of his robe, Harry sewed up a handful of the rips and holes, remembering all the long nights he spent in the cupboard repairing Dudley’s torn pants.

When he was finished with that, Harry noticed a large hole in his winter cloak, which he patched with the pelt from the rabbit he had killed two days before. When his clothes were sufficiently repaired, Harry laid his cloak on the floor of the warm, dry tunnel and went to sleep. 

A few hours into his sleep, Harry was startled awake by a loud train horn that echoed in the badger tunnel. It took him a moment to realize what was happening, as the train tracks had long ceased being anything more than the path that would eventually lead him to Hogwarts. When the second horn sounded, Harry wasted no time in scampering out of the hole, smacking into the trolley that he had left by the entrance on his way out. As he poked his head out of the hole, he could see the train’s light in the distance as it traveled southbound. Harry didn’t even stop to grab his trunk. Running as fast as he could, he dashed for the train, but he was simply too far away. In his quest for a safe place to sleep only a few hours before, he had strayed too far from the track, and in doing so, had made it impossible to catch the train. Dejected, he watched the train steam away, leaving Harry alone in the English countryside.

By the time he had returned to his sleeping place, Harry’s pain over missing the train had already dulled. “It doesn’t matter,” proclaimed Harry bitterly. “I’ve made it this far, I can make it the rest of the way,” he continued angrily. 

It took him a few minutes to completely settle, and when he did, he drifted into a decidedly unrestful sleep.


	13. The Unwelcome Guest

The second time Harry awoke, it was to an altogether unpleasant hissing sound, along with the sensation of hot, wet breath on his neck. He quickly rolled over, grabbing his wand and pointed stick before he even opened his eyes, dodging a claw-swipe in the process.  
As he backed deeper into the badger den, Harry eyed the burrow’s owner, waiting for it to make the first move. It followed him deeper still, until Harry could feel his back hit the cold dirt of wall behind him. When the giant badger showed no sign of stopping, Harry cast a Flippendo towards it with the hope of knocking it backwards. 

That was a mistake. 

The giant badger didn’t move an inch, and after an angry hiss and a snort which signified its confusion and mounting anger, it began to charge. Panicking, Harry cast a Diffindo, aiming at the creature’s face. Though his spell caused a stream of blood to erupt from his adversary, it showed no sign of stopping, and finally closed the distance between it and Harry, making a swipe at him with its massive clawed paw. 

Harry ducked and rolled away, launched another two Diffindo spells. Despite both hitting head on, the giant badger was utterly unfazed, and if anything only redoubled its efforts. With no other obvious option, Harry look towards his trunk. 

“WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!” Harry bellowed, gesturing towards the trunk. As the trunk lifted into the air, it wobbled unsteadily, but stayed afloat. As the badger began to close for another attack, Harry swung his wand in its direction, causing the trunk to fly violently towards the giant badger. As the two collided, the giant badger was knocked off balance and slammed into a dirt wall, causing a large amount of dust to fall from the ceiling. 

With the time he bought, Harry bolted for the exit, casting a second levitation charm to bring the trunk and his things with him. As he wriggled out of the burrow and into the dawn, he looked below to find the giant badger still in hot pursuit. Finally outside, Harry felt a draining sensation as his trunk crashed to the ground. Still enraged, the badger chased Harry, with both of them now moving quickly across the damp, open plain. The potion phials tied to Harry’s belt loops crashed against him as he ran as fast as he could, but as the badger barreled towards him, Harry felt his trainers slip on the slick grass and he fell to the ground, skidding a short distance on the grass.

Behind him, the beast let loose a dreadful hissing noise as it reared up and prepared to strike. Now completely desperate, Harry rolled out of the way and pulled a phial from its strip of cloth, not even looking as he tossed it towards his opponent. Luckily for Harry but unluckily for the badger, he had chosen the Flare Blossom Potion, which ignited in a terrible explosion once the potion bottle crashed against the giant badger. The beast screamed with rage and rolled on the ground in an attempt to extinguish the fire, but to no avail. Though the grass failed to ignite, the badger also failed to put itself out, and after a few agonizing minutes, Harry breathed a sigh of relief when the beast stopped moving. 

Harry feared that his volatile mixture would taint the meat or risk setting ablaze in the night, Harry left the smoking corpse where it lay, stopping only to retrieve his trunk and trolley before moving onward. 

The rest of the day was blissfully uneventful, and though the morning’s encounter left Harry feeling magically drained, he felt he had just enough energy to levitate the trunk a few inches off the ground, just enough to save him some time while traversing more difficult terrain.  
Harry ate the stew he made from the bladed falcons that night, which tasted disgusting but was better than nothing. 

That night, Harry found himself unable to sleep, even after practicing his magic until he could manifest nothing more than sparks. He couldn’t stop thinking about the creatures that had attacked him and the risk of encountering something even worse as he moved north. With the Flare Blossom potion used up, he had nothing but the spells he knew and a pointy stick to ward off opponents, and his encounter that day against a barely magical opponent showed him that both were woefully insufficient.

As he tossed and turned, Harry became desperate to find something to put him asleep. When his boredom reached its climax, he turned to the one book he had yet to open: his history of magic textbook. Though he correctly assumed that the book would be filled with stories of stogy old men sticking their wands where they didn’t belong, between its pages he found something just engaging enough to keep him interested. It stood to reason that somewhere in the many varied depictions of battles in the book, a handful of battle magic spells would be mentioned, at least once or twice. Eventually, Harry had the names and wand motions for two spells which possessed no small amount of promise: Stupefy, a stunning spell which could bring knock even strongest wizards a crumpled heap, and Protego, a shielding spell which promised to shield the user with a silvery bubble that could deflect physical attacks and spells. 

Obviously, Miranda Goshawk and apparently the Hogwarts faculty considered neither spell appropriate for a first-year student, but Harry didn’t care. He was sick of slashing his way through his opponents and he knew he needed something stronger if he wanted to make the rest of the walk in one piece. 

Bookmarking the places he found mentions of the two spells, Harry finally felt confident enough to rest, bothering only to pull his winter cloak over himself before he fell asleep.


	14. The Serpent

The next three days passed without incident, though Harry could feel the weather chill as a fog descended over the plains that he traversed, making walking slightly more difficult and very damp. Hedwig would occasionally visit, sometimes even sleeping in her cage during the daytime or visiting during the nighttime.

Harry attempted the stunning and shielding spells a handful of times, but though he felt a surge of magical power leave him every time, he saw no effect, which frustrated him to no end. In direct contrast was his levitation charm, which slowly improved with each cast, leaving him able to move even faster along the track instead of dragging his things behind him.

Though Harry found the stories in his history book entertaining, he also found them of little educational value for improving his current situation. After he was fairly sure he would learn nothing else that would keep him alive, he stopped reading it and picked up his Transfiguration text instead. Each night, Harry would repeat the transfiguration he had succeeded in performing the badger den: a conversion of a blade of grass to a needle, though each time he would make it a little difficult. First came a very short piece, then a piece that wasn’t dead, then a piece that was very long and very much alive. By the end of the second night, Harry felt confident enough to move on to a more advanced transfiguration.

Though he book didn’t mention now to do it explicitly, he figured his next step should be turning his pointy stick into something more menacing. Harry figured that if he could sharpen the point or turn the stick into metal, he’d have a much more impressive close-range weapon, one that could very well safe his life.

At the end of the third night, his magical reserve not quite depleted, Harry gestured his wand towards his pointy stick, focusing entirely on turning it into a hard, sharpened metal. Though he didn’t see a change, per say, when Harry picked up the stick he could feel that it had definitely become weightier, which was an excellent start.

In the morning of yet another day of walking, Harry found the soft, inviting grass yield to a prickly, unpleasant bramble, which forced him to walk on the track most of the way. With few nearby edible plants, Harry found himself nearly starving after finishing the last of his stew days ago. Wracked with hunger, Harry knew he had only one choice when a rabbit darted across his path. With a quick Diffindo, Harry stained the tracks ahead of him with the rabbit’s blood and stopped the creature mid-stride. Though Harry felt a pang of regret, it was nowhere near as sharp as the first time he killed a rabbit, and since he did not relish the fear of starvation, he wasted no time in butchering his prey to recover the meat and fur.

Without any other sources of food, Harry found himself catching and killing two more rabbits that bolted past him that day. Half of the meat he cooked into a stew, and the rest he fried in the bottom of his cauldron. The furs he used to repair his cloak when it became torn from the brambles grabbing ahold of it.

As Harry continued his movement north, he came upon a massive spruce forest that extended as far as he could see. Harry saw the tracks dive right into the forest and knew that once again he would be forced to descend into a magical wood.

As he had the last two times he encountered a forest, Harry set up camp early that night, with the intention of getting an early start the next morning.

As Harry cautiously entered the forest the next morning, he levitated his trunk behind him to reduce the noise he made while traveling. Though the quiet rustling of the trees in the wind was unsettling, Harry didn’t encounter anything of note in his first few hours of travel.  
It was around mid-day, when the sun was high in the sky but obscured by the thick foliage above that Harry heard a voice.

“ _What’sssss thisss? A treat hassss wandered into my domain_?”

Though the “accent” was different, Harry recognized the voice as very similar to the one that had spoken to him in the reptile house. Somewhere in the forest, a snake was speaking.

Harry couldn’t remember how he talked to snakes, but he figured it would give it a try.

“ _I mean you no harm...I’m only passssing through_.”

Harry heard a horrid sound come from somewhere behind him. The closest he could figure, it was a mixture of laughter and hissing.

“ _Doessss the rabbit mean the falcon harm? Doessss the fly mean the toad harm?_

_Resssst assssssured my prey, you posssse no threat to me_.”

Harry spun around just in time to leap out of the way of the snake’s first strike, which came in the form of a leap directly towards him. This gave Harry an opportunity to examine his aggressor, who was a massive fanged brown snake covered in thick scales. As the snake turned to attack again, Harry was ready. When he saw the opportunity to strike, he launched a Diffindo towards the snake.

Unfortunately, though the spell hit, it didn’t do much to the snake’s thick scales. Though Harry could see he had scored the scales very deeply, the serpent seemed unaffected and continued its assault, this time slithering towards Harry until it was close enough to rear up and attack.

Panicking, Harry attempted to cast the shielding charm.

“PROTEGO!” he shouted, drawing a mental bubble of force between him and the snake.  
As the snake lunged forward, Harry saw it contact the glimmering shield he had summoned, but instead of smacking against the shield, the snake began to move slowly through it, as if the shield was made of molasses instead of pure force. Harry tried to back away from the snake that was quickly invading his personal space, but he couldn’t get far enough away fast enough, and before he knew it the snake was within striking range.

As the snake made another leap towards Harry, this time too close to shield against, Harry could only turn his body away as the snake’s fangs sunk deep into his left shoulder. Harry felt a sharp pain followed by an excruciating burning sensation that began at the bite and began to spread.

Harry felt a sense of total panic, but he realized it wouldn’t help him. When the snake’s bite loosened, Harry pointed his wand at the still-attached snake and tried yet another spell.  
“STUPEFY!” he screamed, barely keeping his wand square on the snake.

When a violent bolt of red light sprung from his wand and slammed into the massive snake, Harry was shocked that he had actually managed the spell. The snake was propelled a short distance and then lay totally still.

Approaching carefully, Harry saw that he had indeed stunned the snake, but not killed it. As the burning sensation from his wound traveled down to his wrist, Harry felt filled with a rage he had only experienced a few times before. He drew the pointed stick in his left hand and felt a surge of magical energy travel down his arm and into the stick, twisting it into a sharp knife made of metal. His wand still quivering in his right hand, Harry approached the snake and carefully located its neck. As he brought the newly transfigured knife down across the creature’s neck, he found he was able to pry apart the tough scales, just barely drawing blood.

Now that the snake’s tender flesh was exposed, Harry brought down his wand.

“Diffindo,” he whispered, utterly emotionless.

The snake’s neck exploded in a shower of blood as the head was cleanly and neatly detached from its body.

Harry dragged the head a short distance and then began to shout, addressing the whole forest.\

“ _LET THISSSS BE A LESSSSON AND A WARNING TO ALL OF YOU. I AM HARRY POTTER. I WILL NOT BE PREY_.”

His magic was completely drained from the shielding charm and the stunning spell, so Harry found himself forced to drag his trunk along with his right arm, leaving his wand tucked away.

A few minutes later, Harry found himself in a clearing in the forest. As his rage melted away into exhaustion, he realized that the burning sensation from the snakebite had taken over his entire left arm with no sign of stopping. His hand became sluggish and his fingers felt numb and Harry began to panic.

Fighting the urge to collapse, Harry pulled out his Potions textbook and quickly flipped to the antivenom section. The most basic of potions called for a variety of things he had, including a giant badger fang he had thoughtfully collected back in the den. As he quickly mixed the reagents, using all the drinking water he had for a potion base, Harry’s vision darkened, as if the world was closing itself off from him. When it came to the final step, Harry realized he had no poison from the snake to complete the potion.

Thinking quickly, he pulled off his robe top, exposing the angry inflamed wound that covered his left shoulder. As he leaned over the cauldron, he squeezed out a few drops of blood from the points the snake bite had made, praying it would be enough. As the blood fizzed into the mixture, Harry dropped to the ground, barely conscious.

With one last burst of energy, Harry bottled the mixture and drank it, feeling a cool soothing sensation run across his left arm just as he passed out.


	15. The Swarm

It was the pain in his left arm that woke him up the following morning. Though the wound still looked inflamed, the redness had gone down significantly and the numbness and loss of control had faded, leaving two nasty puncture wounds but apparently no permanent damage.   
Once he was fairly sure he wasn’t going to die anytime soon, Harry stood up and checked the clearing he had collapsed in the night before, finding nothing of interest. As his stomach grumbled and his throat ached from a lack of water, Harry realized that he needed to get out of the forest as fast as possible, if only so he could find some food and water. 

As he made his way back into the forest, Harry was on high alert, cautious of the snake’s brood attacking him out of revenge or some other terrible creature attacking him. Though he heard a few creatures moving underfoot, Harry saw nothing living, and as he pushed his way out of the forest and into the welcoming daylight, he was welcomed with the sight of a massive plain, covered with small white flowers and bisected by the Hogwarts Express track. 

As he stomach groaned, Harry checked his Herbology text to see if the white flowers were edible. He found that they were called “Blade Posies” known for their magically sharp petals that could slice through flesh. Harry winced as he read the plant’s description, barely stopping himself from imagining just what would have happened if he had eaten them without looking the flowers up first. 

Harry resolved to stick to the track to avoid stepping on the flowers, but as a breeze picked up, a number of the posies detached from their stems and flew upwards, spinning in the wind. Harry tried to duck under the cluster of oncoming petals, but one managed to twist past him, cutting a small scrape into his cheek. As he felt the wind begin to pick up again, Harry panicked and broke into a sprint, quickly casting a levitation charm behind him to prevent the trunk from slowing him down. Another cloud flew upwards and approached him, and though Harry tried to outrun it, he couldn’t, and he felt a number of scratches up his arm and across his fingers, which quickly developed into tiny streams of blood that began to cover his hands. 

His hands still stinging, Harry dropped to his knees and cast a shield charm, which managed to keep off the flowers for a few minutes while he dug into his trunk. He pulled out a few strips of cloth and some his dragonhide gloves, and bound up his arms with a few strips of cloth and put on the gloves. With the rest of his tattered T-shirt, he fashioned a mask to cover his mouth.   
As his shield charm faded, Harry prepared himself to sprint again. As the wind spun up one batch of blood-hungry posies after another, Harry could feel his layers protection shred away, but his skin remained mostly untouched. As he began to tire, Harry slowed a little, and he took a knee and attempted another shielding charm to buy himself a few minutes of rest. Though he felt the magical power leave him, Harry remained unprotected, and a handful of flowers floated past him, leaving scratches in the few places on his face that were unprotected. 

It was another two minutes of running before he finally made it out of range of the flowers, at which point Harry finally collapsed, very glad to be finally safe. After an hour of resting, Harry finally felt well enough to look around a little. He found a small pool of water, which he boiled for what felt like first taste of drinking water in a long time. Though the Blade Posies had apparently greedily removed much of the wildlife and edible flora from the area, Harry was able to collect enough berries and roots to keep his energy up. 

When he finally stopped to rest that night, Harry was sore all over from the multitude of cuts he had received, many of which still stung. Though he was no longer loosing blood, the wounds were at the very least an inconvenience, one which kept him up an extra hour or so. Just before he finally got to sleep, Harry worried about Hedwig, who he hadn’t seen in days. As his drifted out of consciousness, Harry’s mind was filled with awful nightmares of the Blade Posies, lazily drifting through the sky, slicing everything to pieces.


	16. The Final Camp

The next morning, Harry awoke to the pleasant sound of Hedwig returning to her cage. Harry was delighted that his owl seemed to be in perfect condition, and though he had nothing to feed her, she seemed willing to stick around awhile. Harry scratched her head and listened to her soft hooting for a little while before he packed up his things and resumed his walk towards Hogwarts, taking care not to jostle Hedwig’s cage too much as he walked. 

As he walked north, Harry encountered no resistance, save for the gradual change from an untouched sea of grass to a much tougher rocky expanse with a few errant tufts of plants here and there. As he had no reserves of food or water left, Harry found himself spending a few extra hours each day scouting to the east and west. He spent three days walking like this with no interruptions.   
On the third day, Harry felt a chill wind picking up. He wasn’t sure if it was the northward travel or the fact that by his calculations it was very nearly October, but he was sure the weather was turning colder. Though he saw no snow, Harry found that the ice cold winds were enough to bother him, and he finally found himself putting back on the mask he had made of cloth to protect his face and ears from frostbite. When he began to lose the feeling in his fingers, Harry put on his dragonhide gloves again, which provided some protection from the wind. 

That night, Harry wrapped himself in his winter cloak and his extra robes, but he could still feel the frozen ground sapping heat from him, leaving him shivering. His teeth chattering and his hand quivering, Harry surrounded himself in Bluebell charms, which warmed him enough that could sleep comfortably. 

The temperature only continued to drop the next day, and Harry emptied two of his potion phials and cast a Bluebell charm into each. After he slipped one phial into each pocket of his jeans, he found himself warm enough to continue his walk. When he ran out of water and went to fetch more, he found the small ponds in the area were already flash frozen, and he was forced to warm the water up with Bluebell charms just to render it drinkable. 

Harry passed by another forest that day, but the train track thankfully bypassed it, leaving Harry’s path clear to walk comfortably. 

When Harry laid down to rest that night, he was delighted that the cold snap had mostly broken, giving him a much warmer place to rest. After Hedwig took flight to hunt for the night, Harry opened up his History of Magic book. Though the Hogwarts section was very short, Harry found a map of England with Hogwarts marked and labeled. Though the map didn’t have the Hogwarts Express track, Harry estimated that he was getting close. It would only be a few more days, if even that, before he finally made it. 

Though the prospect of making to Hogwarts was an exciting one, Harry found himself simply resigned to continue his walk. He had been walking for so long that he couldn’t think of much else. Thoughts of finding food in the morning and warding off predators were much more prominent than dreams of Hogwarts. 

He continued reading the History of Magic book, if not out of interest than because it kept him grounded. Together with the tracks it reminded him that despite the weeks he had been walking, there was more to the world of magic than a savage wasteland of angry creatures, and that he would soon be enjoying that world wholeheartedly. 

His mind filled with goblin revolutions and brilliant spell casters, Harry drifted off to sleep, some measure of his excitement in visiting Hogwarts restored. 

The next morning, Harry found himself practicing his spells, not because he wanted to survive to the next day, but because he wanted to make sure he was up to snuff when he finally made it to school. The dreams of actually attending Hogwarts had taken root, and it led to him spending his spare time scouring the texts he had otherwise ignored, carefully absorbing facts on the theory of magic and proper transfiguration techniques. 

He walked for hours that day, and though his legs absolutely ached, he found himself propelled onwards by the promise of finally putting a stop to his walking. 

As he lay down that night, Harry double-checked his stunning spell and shield charm, finding them stronger and more reliable than ever. The History of Magic text had made allusions to a “Forbidden Forest” near the school that was filled with dangerous monsters and creatures, which Harry wanted to be prepared for. 

Though the thoughts of the beasts that lived inside the Forbidden Forest were unsettling, Harry found himself more than ready to sleep, thanks in part to his magical exhaustion. As he lay his head down and Hedwig flew off for the night, Harry dreamed of the quickly approaching prospect of finally reaching Hogwarts.


	17. The Castle

It only took another two hours of walking the next morning before Harry could finally see the spires of Hogwarts over the trees and hills of the countryside. Soon after, he came upon a massive bridge spanning a water-filled valley. On the other side, across a massive lake, he saw his first glimpse of the entirely of Hogwarts, and it was everything he imagined.   
As he walked across the bridge, Harry looked out over the lake, taking it all in. He realized that the track didn’t go directly to Hogwarts and instead snaked around, taking a path around the Forbidden Forest instead of through it. Since he couldn’t see the track across the lake, Harry could only imagine that continuing to follow the track at this point could mean up to another day of walking, and with Hogwarts so close, he wasn’t willing to waste any more time.   
As he approached the forest, the sun was setting in the sky and he could see the greenhouses on the other end, just across the lake. Though Harry realized that he could just swim across, the History of Magic textbook had warned of lake monsters and merfolk, and given that Harry was more confident in his walking ability than his swimming ability, he decided to take a risk and walk straight through the forest. 

When he was only a few minutes into the Forbidden Forest, Harry realized why the text had seen fit to warn him. It was darker than any other forest he had been in, and the creaking of the trees together with the screeching of a dozen different creatures put him on edge. 

When Harry had reached what he assumed was the center of the short section of the forest he had chosen to cut through, he heard a vicious snarling behind him. Acting on instinct, Harry spun around, dropped to reduce his profile. To his left and right, he heard the same snarl repeated again. Harry began to sweat as the three creatures approached him. At the same time, all three creatures leaped, and acting quickly, Harry cast a shielding charm. The wolf-like creatures on either side of him passed harmlessly through the shield, disappearing, while the third crashed against it, leaving Harry unharmed. 

Now even more intent on attacking Harry, the beast released a howl, creating two more illusionary copies of itself again. Sensing that his magical reserves had already taken a hit with just one shielding charm, Harry knew he needed to finish this fight or become a sitting duck. Now fairly sure that the fake versions of the wolf-beast were harmless tricks, Harry allowed himself to track the true copy as it bobbed and weaved through the forest, looking for an opening. As it leapt for another attack, Harry dove to the side, casting a Diffindo that hit the wolf on the snout, leaving it with a small bleed and a much larger stock of annoyance. Now that it was even easier to track the wolf as its glamoured copies swarmed around it, Harry concentrated on summoning his magical power for another attack. 

While Harry focused on getting Stupefy correct, he drew his Transfigured knife, intending to keep the wolf at bay with wild slashes until he could get the spell in. When he saw an opening, Harry roared the incantation, casting the stunning spell directly at the correct version. Unfortunately, one of the fake versions of the wolf leaped in front of the spell, dissipating both itself and the spell harmlessly. 

Harry found himself caught off guard, and in the split second between the wasting of the stunning spell and a second cast, Harry’s adversary attacked, biting his left arm savagely. Though Harry’s mind swarmed with pain and his vision turned red, he knew he couldn’t stop. Fighting against the wolf’s grip, he waved his left arm, threatening the wolf with the knife still in his left hand. When that didn’t work and he felt the wolf’s fangs sink deeper into his flesh, Harry steadied his wand as best he could.

“STUPEFY!” Harry practically screamed, pointing directly at the wolf’s face.   
The creature was knocked off of him, leaving a gaping bleeding wound on his arm, and though the creature didn’t collapse, it took a moment to get up from its position, and when it began to circle for another attack, it was moving slowly and unsteadily. 

Harry weighed his options. He could attempt a less powerful spell, but he wasn’t sure it would do anything, and wasting valuable time could mean a serious injury or worse. Realizing he had no other choice, he waited for the beast’s next attack. As the beast leapt towards him one last time, Harry cast Stupefy again, aiming directly as the wolf’s head. 

The spell struck directly head on, and this time when Harry’s opponent was knocked back it slammed against a nearby tree, and it didn’t get up. Well aware that the creature might still be alive and even more angry, Harry ran for the edge of the forest, using the very last of his magical power to levitate his trunk the rest of the way, finally leaving his trolley behind when it strained the levitation charm too much. 

When he finally reached the other end of the forest, Harry was overjoyed. For a split second, he couldn’t even feel the massive injury on his arm. When he was consciously aware of the pain again, Harry realized he wasn’t completely safe just yet. He continued to sprint across the Hogwarts grass, running past the greenhouses and to the path at the entrance to the grand castle, dripping massive droplets of blood the whole way. 

It took only another minute to run to the door, but to Harry it felt like an eternity. When he finally reached the path in front of the door, he walked the final distance, dragging his trunk behind him.   
The Harry that knocked on that door was not the same Harry that had walked into King’s Cross one month before. This Harry was covered in wounds, from the marks left by snake fangs on his left shoulder and the huge bite marks on his left arm to the wraith claw scars on his chest. His jeans were stained with blood and dirt, and the rope top he wore was torn and caked with filth. Though his cloak was patched with the pelts of a number of wild animals, it still remained torn and bloody in multiple places. He was just as lean as the day he left, but he was stronger and fitter. He was tired and a little scared, but one thing hadn’t changed: he was still excited. He knew that there was still wonder to be found in the magical world, and he knew he would find it on the other side of the door. 

It took only a minute for someone to answer, and as Harry looked up to see who had answered the door, he found himself greeted by a tall man with greasy black hair, a large hooked nose, and a terrible scowl. 

“And who do we have out here, wandering the grounds like a fool, having locked himself out of the castle?” the man asked, carefully lacing each word with contempt. 

As Harry brushed the hair out of his eyes, revealing both the bleeding wound on his arm as well as his green eyes and lightening scar on his forehead, the man suppressed a gasp. 

“Harry Potter sir,” Harry responded, “I’m here to learn magic.”

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to this website, which I used to estimate how long it would take Harry to walk to Hogwarts: 
> 
> http://members.madasafish.com/~cj_whitehound/Fanfic/map_of_Hogwarts/location.htm
> 
> I realize that the route Harry takes doesn't fit perfectly with the route of the Hogwarts express, but first and foremost I wanted this fic to be about exploring how Harry would cope with learning magic on his own, and what it would take for a first year wizard to survive in the savage magical countryside. 
> 
> I hope anyone who read this enjoyed it!


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